The theme for New Year's Eve and Day dinners is seafood. New Year's Eve we make crab cioppino again, using leftover cioppino sauce from Christmas Eve with new Dungeness crab, scallops, shrimp, and rigatoni. To that we add a kale salad with homemade bread crumbs, avocado, pecorino cheese, and a dressing of garlic paste, pecorino cheese, lemon juice, olive oil and salt/pepper. All accompanied by a sliced baguette and a light-bodied cabernet sauvignon which complements the spice of the cioppino sauce.
Indulgent Sojourns: Random Adventures in Food, Wine, and Travel
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Friday, January 3, 2025
New Year's Dinner: Paella Mixta
Tuesday, December 31, 2024
Christmas Dinner: Beef Wellington
We start with a cheese dip appetizer with crackers and sliced baguette while we set the table and pull together the salad, green beans, and potatoes. Accompanied by pink champagne.
We blanch the green beans in boiling water, allow them to cool, then cook them in butter, garlic, and red pepper flakes, adding lemon zest at the end. The potatoes are boiled until tender, cooled, carefully smashed in our hands until flat (but still in one piece), drizzled with duck fat, and baked with rosemary and garlic. We plate and serve dinner with a red Saint-Émilion Bordeaux wine,
What a festive and delightful meal!
Friday, December 27, 2024
Christmas Eve Dinner: Crab Cioppino
We follow an old family tradition and have crab for Christmas Eve dinner: hot crab dip to start and crab cioppino for dinner. First we pick three dungeness crabs (purchased cooked and cleaned at our local grocery store).
To make the cioppino sauce, we sauté onions, garlic, and parsley, then add two cans of San Marzano tomatoes (pureed in a food processor), two cans of tomato sauce, one can of tomato paste, and two bottles of clam juice. Season, bring to a boil, and simmer for an hour. We add the crab, along with some shrimp and scallops, and simmer another 1/2 hour, To finish off, cooked rigatoni (nicely al dente of course) is added prior to serving with a Lebanese-themed taverna salad of tomatoes, chickpeas, bell peppers, English cucumber, kalamata olives, shallot, capers, scallions, baked pita chips, and fried halloumi cheese (with a dressing of red wine vinegar, garlic, oregano, and olive oil).
Tuesday, December 24, 2024
Seattle's Gingerbread Village
Gingerbread Village has been a tradition in Seattle for 30 years. Located in the lobby of the Sheraton Grand Seattle, the village is designed by local architects and created by the Sheraton culinary staff. This year the displays depict famous four famous worldwide locations: India, London, Sydney, and Paris. Visiting the display is free, but donations are requested to benefit type 1 diabetes research. Here are this year's displays, some as large as 6 feet (1.8 meters) tall.
At the entrance, the Gingerbread Village Airlines flight information shows the destinations.